Robots, monsters and Ron Perlman. Oh my.

Rating: 9/10 (23 August 2015)

Robots, monsters and Ron Perlman. Oh my. Director Guillermo del Toro gives us the movie that we've wanted to see since we were five-years-old. In an action-packed and brilliant visual effects spectacle, we have giant robots fighting vicious monsters on Earth. As a fan of genre films who knows how to tell a great story while mixing in loud and vibrating action sequences, del Toro was the perfect person for this project. 'Pacific Rim' moves fast and will keep you on your toes until the very end. While this summer has proved that big budget action movies don't always go the distance, I'm betting that this one will.
We get almost twenty minutes of prologue before the title 'Pacific Rim' pops up on- screen. In the near future, a giant monster that resembles a mix of Godzilla and a dinosaur rises from beneath the ocean and destroys San Francisco. Unfortunately, this giant beast isn't the only one of its kind. Many more of these monsters, called "Kaiju," begin popping up all over the globe, wreaking havoc.
Several years pass, and the countries of the world set aside their differences to make "Jaegers," 30-story fighting robots controlled by two pilots that sit inside the massive metal structures. We meet two Jaeger pilots, the brothers Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff), as they battle a powerful monster near Alaska. The secret to operating a Jaeger is for the two pilots to sync up their brains by way of something called "The Drift," which completely unlocks the other's secrets and memories, so that they can use their skill sets together to defeat their foes.
Over time, the Kaiju adapt and get smarter, until they can now take out the Jaegers. The entire Jaeger program is being flushed down the toilet by the people in charge, to be replaced by a giant wall. (Now, if 'World War Z' taught us anything, it's that walls, no matter how tall or reinforced they are, won't stop zombies, let alone mega monsters.) However, when more and more Kaiju show up, Jaeger commander Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) finds Raleigh and asks him to be a pilot again in one of the last four remaining Jaegers, in their final attempt to stop these monsters and save the entire planet.
Since an unfortunate accident in an earlier battle, Raleigh doesn't want to share his mind in the Drift with anyone – until he meets the pretty Japanese girl named Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), who is not only intelligent, but can hold her own in a fight with any of the guys. The two seem to make a perfect match. Meanwhile, the Jaeger program enlists the help of two scientists to tackle the obstacles of the Kaiju's origins and why they're coming to Earth. Dr. Newton Geizler (Charlie Day) and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) make up this mad scientist duo and provide a good bit of comic relief as they try to solve the Kaiju mystery. Finally comes Ron Perlman as black market Kaiju organ dealer named Hannibal Chau, who might just be the greatest character invented for the big screen in the past few years. I seriously want a spin-off movie focused on him.
Guillermo del Toro knows how to film big action sequences in such a way that got the whole audience I was with cheering, clapping, laughing and yelling. Whether it be a Jaeger swinging an oil tanker ship like it was a sword, or one of the mega robots ripping out the tongue of a monster, everything is done on an epic scale with a heart-pumping soundtrack. The Kaiju all look very different from one another and seem to have minds of their own. The visual effects are some of the best I've ever seen.
Unfortunately, the two main leads, Hunnam and Kikuchi, are one of the biggest downfalls of the movie. While I like these two actors, they both fall completely flat with their surrounding co-stars, and their acting is almost laughable at times. But the film moves so fast and keeps so much else going on that you tend to forget about that problem.
Idris Elba gets a great 'Independence Day'-style speech, and has a deep dark secret that I want to explore more. Charlie Day is terrific as the comic relief and Burn Gorman is a brilliant mix of Dr. Egon Spangler and Dr. Strangelove.
Among the big action sequences, del Toro does a great job of developing the characters, even if they're a bit clichéd and silly. For this type of film, it works. This is one of the most entertaining movies of the year and I can't wait to see it again. A sequel is already in the works, so when Idris Elba yells, "Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!", take that with a grain of salt.
Don't forget to stay through the credits for a great little scene.